An autonomous or semi-autonomous robot may be called upon to handle a wide variety of tasks in a wide variety of environments. Assessing performance of a robot in connection with the performance of such tasks, however, can be difficult, particularly in applications where the nature of the tasks performed by a robot are such that the tasks are not repeatable using the exact same sequence of operations each time. In an illustrative example of a multipurpose residential cleaning robot, for example, cleaning tasks may differ each time they are performed due to the presence of different obstructions, differing degrees of cleanliness or uncleanliness, etc. Adapting the operation of a robot to better accommodate differing environments and conditions is generally desirable, so a need generally exists for improved manners of optimizing robot tasks in such variable environments.